You are the hole in my head
by theholyfsandotherletters
Summary: Eric carries them both as they sit on the Stackhouse porch putting themselves together. Post 4x12.


_Although posted in two fandoms, this is NOT a crossover. This story consists of three parts. The first part is True Blood and the last part is The Vampire Diaries. The mid part goes for both the first and last part. Skip and read according to your interests._

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><p>When a shotgun is fired in the house you are sleeping in, you are going to wake up. When the shotgun is fired twice, you wake up even if you've just lost the love of your life and lie in deep, drug-induced sleep.<p>

It doesn't take many seconds for him to get down to the kitchen and take in the brutal scene once he recognizes Sookie's hysterical screams for help.

Sookie calms down somewhat once she sees Lafayette. "She - she jumped in front of the gun to save me", she cries. Her eyes widen. "We can't lose her, Lafayette! It's _Tara_!"

He calls Eric. And she doesn't pretend that the thought didn't cross her mind too.

"You better get your ass down to Sookie's house."

He can't help but feel a little smug as he rushes towards her house, he _knew_ before he got the call and so did Bill, but Compton being a _gentleman_ and 'respecting Sookie's _feelings_' didn't want to _disturb_ her. So Eric left him to handle the Nan-remains and dashed off under a false excuse. That's the kind of gentleman _he_ is. The kind that _fixes _things.

Lafayette takes a deep breath and says "Sook, I don't think any V's gonna fix a hole that big. Not even when it's _his_ blood." Sookie looks at him and he knows exactly what she's thinking. "And I thinks Tara's not gon' appreciate being _turned_."

'Turned' seems to be the magic word because suddenly Tara's spirit is standing in the kitchen, pissed as hell.

"You bitches ain't turning me into a goddamn _vampire_! Lafayette, if you do that you'll be the _first _one I'll kill!"

Sookie, of course, sees only the change in Lafayette's expression but realizes what's happening. "Tara, I'm not going to lose you too! Not after all we've been through!"

"_She'll _be second!" Tara screams at Lafayette.

"Look, bitch, I's fucking killed my boyfriend today, you ain't dyin' today."

"I'm already dead, and I ain't gonna be a walking corpse."

Eric appears at the door, having heard what Lafayette said. In the blink of an eye he's kneeling by Tara's head resting in Sookie's lap. He takes one look at the gash before his eyes meet Sookie's tear-filled ones. His voice has a soft tone when he looks at Lafayette and confirms his thought. "My blood can't heal her anymore. I'm sorry."

His arrival seems to have sparked fairy-Sookie back to the surface, because her voice takes a stubborn, challenging tone. "You can turn her."

At this, Tara's spirit takes possession of Lafayette.

"Now you listen to me, Sookie Stackhouse. I'm _not_ going to turn into a vampire. You owe that to me. I saved your life!"

"Oh, no, you don't get to guilt trip me on this!"

"Actually, I do!"

Eric interferes. "Sookie, I'm not going to turn her if she doesn't want to turn."

"I never thought I'd say this to a bloodsucker but _thank you,_ someone with some sense in their head!"

His comment only makes Sookie angrier. "Since when do _you _have a moral code?" she spits. Eric, unfazed, turns back to Tara's spirit. "Rest in peace, Tara."

Tara nods, and when she speaks, her voice is uncharacteristically soft and gentle. "Sook, look at me. I love you. We had so many good years, don't let this ruin them. It's so peaceful here, and I can see Gran and Jesus and Eggs and nothing will ever hurt me again. Let me go. I'll still always be with you."

At that, her spirit slips out of Lafayette. She says something to him as his tears start to roll, and then leaves the room.

Sookie's not impressed. "What the HELLIS _WRONG_ with y'all? So we're just gonna let her _die_?"

It takes a minute of yelling until she's a sobbing wreck. By that time Eric has called Jason. "Tell Jessica to go home and sleep."

Jason's baffled, as per usual. "How the hell do you…?"

"I know _everything_, Jason. Get all your forces to your sister's house."

It shouldn't, after so many times, but it still knocks the wind out of him. And then comes the crashing wave of terror, cold sweat, and nausea.

"Tara's dead."

She's definitely lost the fairy-Sookie attitude when he returns to the kitchen. Both her and Lafayette are crying ugly, desperate tears.

He takes both of them outside on the porch.

The lights from a police car hits her eye from the side, and then they colour the night blue.

There's questions. There's always so many questions. She sits on Eric's lap on the sofa on the porch, Lafayette beside her, her hand tightly holding Lafayette's as if it were a lifeline. But maybe it's really her holding him above the surface, given his traumas caused by guns. New tears start to roll down her cheeks when she finishes her part of the story to the police with telling how she _shot_ Debbie Pelt. It'll be ruled as self-defence, of course, but she can't lie to herself. She's a killer. The feeling of being so, so lost overwhelms her and she grips Lafayette's hand even tighter, the other grasping at the front of Eric's already soaked shirt, and face in the crook of his neck she cries even harder and her tears taste like blood. Debbie Pelt's blood.

He says nothing, just sits there and feels her tears trickle down his chest. There are really no words of comfort to offer in such a situation. And he knows how many thoughts are flying around, she must be struggling to keep them out without having his voice too. So, he keeps silent, arm holding her to his chest, the other outstretched behind Lafayette's head on the sofa's backrest. It's not an invitation and they don't touch but it's a wordless, tiny gesture of support.

They sit there for what seems like hours, unable to move. When the two body bags have been brought out and it's finally silent and the night isn't blue-lighted anymore she whispers "I killed her. It was nowhere near self-defence. I just…shot her." It's strange, but she feels nothing at that. No guilt, no regret. "Fairy-Sookie…", she adds, absentmindedly.

"Mm", Eric agrees, a smidge of pride in the sound barely detectable.

"Bitch deserved it." Lafayette murmurs.

It'll soon be dawn and in the afternoon she will wake up with his arms around her in his cubby under her house, dried tear-tracks on her face, and her and Lafayette will have to deal with the aftermaths while he's dead for the day. Call Alcide. Lettie Mae. Sam. Clean the kitchen from blood, once again. But maybe those tasks will be a bit easier because this night, he carries them as they sit on the porch, putting themselves together.

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><p>There she sits on a porch in the South, an orphaned, heartbroken girl with only one family member left: her brother.<p>

She used to be a good girl. Now she is very much tangled in the webs of the creatures of the night, and she is not so sure of what kind of a girl she is anymore. Vampires, werewolves. Witches too. Messed her life up.

She fell in love with a chivalrous vampire who seemingly stumbled into her life. But vampires do not stumble. This she learned the hard way when she was betrayed by her first love.

_You are the hole in my head _

_You are the space in my bed _

They say it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. In her case, she thinks it would rationally have been better to never have met the man she fell in love with. The person closest to a mother for her could have lived. Many friends as well.

_You are the silence in between _

_What I thought and what I said _

When she's mad, she damns him to hell, because he had _no right_ to make her fall in love with him. She could've lived her life as it was before him, and. So. Many. Lives could've been saved if he hadn't forced his love upon her. How was she to know that he would ruin her life?

_You are the night time fear _

_You are the morning when it's clear _

But in a silent corner of her mind, she knows that the mess that her first love brought to town wasn't all bad. Love is love and even though it doesn't exist alongside fear, it can never disappear from memories. And really, this danger has turned her into a fighter. A fighter for herself, and more importantly, her family and friends. And that protective impulse never disappears either.

_When it's over, you're the start _

_You're my head, you're my heart _

Disappear will neither the blue-eyed man who loves her more than she dares to accept. Because, he might not be her first love but maybe he's the love of her life. It's the strangest but also the sweetest thing about him, his love for her, but a heart once broken is a cautious one.

_No light, no light in your bright blue eyes _

_I never knew daylight could be so violent _

In the past months, she hasn't had a chance to process her losses and traumas. Living from trauma to trauma has erased her plans and ambitions, hopes and dreams. That does things to a person. But the choking numbness eases a bit when she has other things on her mind, and maybe someday, somehow, she won't feel this way. In the mean time, she keeps moving on, keeps breathing, fighting, and_ surviving_.

_A revelation in the light of day _

_You can't choose what stays and what fades away _

(Florence + The Machine "No Light, No Light")

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><p>She stands on the porch, staring at Damon's back until it disappears from sight. Her lips tingle. She sits down on one of the chairs on the porch, breathing deeply, staring at the evening. The minutes pass.<p>

Seemingly out of nowhere, a woman, her own mirror image, walks up to the porch, a bottle of red wine in her hand.

Nothing shocks her anymore, she has watched her brother _decapitate_ a man today.

"Hello, Elena."

Katherine has a way of saying her name, contempt badly hidden especially with the way she emphasizes the second 'e'.

"Mind if I…" She's flown in and grabbed two wine glasses before Elena has finished her thought on the house apparently being open to any vampire that has ever set foot in this town. There's a curious smile on Katherine's face when she walks out on the porch again.

"What happened to him?"

Her answer is quite sassy which surprises them both.

"Which one?"

"Alaric?"

"Oh, almost killed by trying to save Jeremy whom Klaus tried to kill. What are you doing here?"

"So Klaus is still here", Katherine sighs exasperated "as for me, I'm here because your brother called me."

"My _brother_?" Why on Earth would Jeremy call _Katherine_? "So you're, what, on his speed dial now?"

And also, shouldn't he be…packing or something right now? The thought startles her and she reprimands herself for being so cold.

"Oh, we bonded. Road trip. Vampire-hunting. I'm here because apparently you and Damon tried to play him for a fool earlier tonight?"

Elena looks down.

"So he put his vervain back on."

Katherine throws her hands in the air at that.

"I mean, seriously, how _stupid_ are you two? You _check _these things!" The glint in her eye turns mischievous. "But he seems to have more Petrova traits than you do. A _survival instinct_, for example. He's still going to wherever you sent him, but I'm here to teach _you _a few things about survival, since I'm the best he knows at that. Quoting. And true."

"Why would you help me? We hate each other."

Her night is only getting stranger and stranger.

Katherine sighs and pours.

"Have a drink. It's wine."

Wondering what else it might be, Elena accepts.

"Look at it this way. I'm your ancestor and also your doppelgänger, which means I'm like the big sister you want to be."

Elena's eyebrow raises at that.

"Do you remember what I told you in that tomb?"

Elena nods slowly. _Katerina. _Child out of wedlock. Rejection. Klaus. Family slaughter.

"Elena, you're a _Petrova_. It's in your blood to survive. No matter the cost." She's silent for a moment, then adds "Also, when _I_ was at crossroads, our mutual ancestor helped me."

This catches Elena's attention and she turns her gaze on Katherine.

"You've _met_ her?"

Katherine nods.

"Charlotte."

"But I never thought…"

"That she'd be a vampire? Well…you do see the pattern, don't you?"

"I'm not going to turn, if that's your agenda."

Elena sniffs suspiciously on the wine a second time.

"From what I've seen, you wouldn't mind eternity with _Damon_ too much."

It might be the wine that makes her so blunt, or the stress of the day, but what she says next astounds them both and moves their conversation to a whole other level of honesty.

"He kissed me today. Here, on this porch, just before you arrived actually."

"He's a good kisser", Katherine remarks.

"He says he loves me," Elena answers, and it's not a happy sound, it's tired, worn, agonized.

They don't look at each other. This is unfamiliar territory, so both stare straight ahead.

"He's good at that too", Katherine says, "too good, I think."

"It's just…Stefan…"

"Oh, I know", she laughs, bitter.

"No, actually, you don't." Elena has no idea where all this courage and honesty is coming from. "He gave himself to Klaus in order to save Damon. He never asked me, which just proves that he loves Damon more than me. But even then, when he was off the addiction, when Klaus had let him go, he still wasn't the same. Either he turned into a person I don't love anymore, or he lost the façade he has been keeping up for the past year."

Katherine ponders this for a while.

"If it was a façade, it was the same one I fell in love with."

"It's just…I loved him so well for so long, and we suffered through so much, and he just _ignores_ that?" There's a beat of silence and she sips her wine. "And Damon…of course I love him, but that changes nothing, does it?"

"Well, here's what I know about Damon. I took everything from him, his heart, his brother, his family, his life, and still he loved me for one and a half _centuries_. That's a long time, even for a vampire."

"He still loves you", Elena muses, "and he will never stop. You two are so much alike. Why do you think he keeps checking up on you?"

"I've seen the way he looks at you, and he will never stop loving you either. It's not in his nature."

"I wish I could feel the same way about him, I really do, but I can't. Maybe it's not in _our_ nature to love him." She silently wonders when she and _her_ became a _we. _"Or maybe I've forgotten how to feel anything."

Katherine makes an agreeing sound. Then, in a different tone says "So, what are you going to do? What's your plan?"

Elena is silent for a moment. "There's really not too much left for me in this town, apart from Caroline, Bonnie and Alaric. And well, Damon. I've been thinking about going to a college somewhere far, far away after graduation. Like Seattle far."

"Or Europe." Katherine comments, smile in her voice. "That sounds like a good plan, granted that you _live_ that long."

"Yeah…the last year's been kind of a struggle" The same smile is in her voice too. "But I'm not just going to pack up _run_ _away_ now like someone else…"

Katherine lets out a laugh pretending to be offended. "Watch it, feisty. And _I'm_ still alive, am I not?"

"Actually no."

Jeremy steps out on the porch and pretends to ignore the fact that his adopted sister and her only blood relative, whom hate each other, are sharing a laugh.

"Oh, Kat, you're here."

Elena lifts her eyebrow. This is definitely the wine. "Kat…?"

Jeremy ignores her comment. "So, 'Lena, I'm all packed up and she's my ride so…"

Nothing was supposed to surprise her anymore tonight.

When they've said their goodbyes and shared their plans and promised to call Elena catches Katherine's eye. "Thank you…Kat."

She nods in response. "Stay alive."

And it's not much and it's not friendship but it's something and it helps.


End file.
